Driver sentenced in fatal hit-and-run crash

Courtesy of the Ryan family
Castrignano pleaded guilty for the hit-and-run crash that killed Cory Ryan, pictured here with his girlfriend, Becca Wahlers.

Danielle Castrignano arrives at the Luzerne County Courthouse on Thursday for sentencing. Mark Moran / The Citizens' Voice

WILKES-BARRE - Danielle Castrignano is going from a life of privilege to prison.

A judge on Thursday sentenced the Kingston woman to at least one year in state prison for a hit-and-run crash last summer in Wilkes-Barre that killed a man crossing the street in his wheelchair.

In a tearful apology to the family of 20-year-old Cory Ryan, Castrignano expressed her sadness and guilt, but maintained she kept driving because she didn't know she hit a person.

"I have been waiting for this day for the last nine months of my life. I came here to express to you how truly sorry I am for this to have happened. No sentence I am given will be equivalent to your loss," Castrignano, 21, said. "I pray to God every night that somehow, some way there will be forgiveness. And I don't expect it."

The apology - without acknowledging she knowingly left a man to die - wasn't good enough for some Ryan family members. Castrignano previously has said she thought she hit a shopping cart.

"I can't forgive you until you admit to what you actually did," Ryan's sister, Candice, said. "I'll believe you're sorry when you tell the truth."

Luzerne County Judge David Lupas sentenced Castrignano to the mandatory minimum sentence of one to two years in state prison on a charge of fleeing the scene of a fatal accident. Castrignano previously pleaded guilty in connection with the crash, which occurred June 15 on South River Street in Wilkes-Barre.

The state prison sentence caps a steady downward spiral by Castrignano, who's been battling heroin addiction for years. In testimony Thursday, her parents lamented how their daughter, filled with such potential, made bad decisions and became addicted to drugs. Her drug use prompted stints in drug rehabilitation and run-ins with police prior to the fatal crash.

Castrignano, who lived with her mother in Kingston, spent weekends and summers at her father's posh home at Harveys Lake, enjoying many days on the water with boats and other watercraft. At Lake-Lehman, she was a popular honors student and accomplished soccer player. Her father owned U.S. Tuxedo in downtown Wilkes-Barre before he sold it and invested about $1 million in a Harveys Lake restaurant, Dominic's on the Lake. As a teenager, Castrignano worked in the restaurant that she was destined to inherit one day.

Dominic Castrignano said his daughter's foray into the drug world occurred around the same time the restaurant business crumbled and he lost his home.

"We are extremely sorry. It's a tragic situation for both families. We're trying to save this young girl," Dominic Castrignano said, pleading for mercy for his daughter. "Young people are up against a drug war in the streets. We're in a fight to save our children."

Prosecutors argued that Castrignano has already squandered many chances and state prison is the only option to help her.

Court records show she has been cited for and found guilty of: harassment in Harveys Lake in January 2008, use of tobacco in school in Exeter in March 2010, possessing an open container of alcohol in Larksville in June 2010, and harassment in Plains Township on two separate dates in September 2010. Castrignano also had two previous criminal convictions for scuffles with police that led to resisting arrest charges, records show.

Prosecutors noted that Castrignano violated her probation by testing positive for drugs while on bail in the hit-and-run case. Then, she was caught with controlled substances twice while jailed for the parole violation, they said.

"This is an example of why she needs to be placed in a state correctional facility," Deputy District Attorney Alexis Favello said.

Ryan, of Waymart, was using a wheelchair as he recovered from a devastating car crash. He, his girlfriend, and friends were visiting the River Common in downtown Wilkes-Barre at the time he was struck by Castrignano's car. Bedridden for months after the previous accident, Ryan was regaining his independence and had just moved into a Wilkes-Barre apartment with his girlfriend, Becca Wahlers.

"It was supposed to be the beginning for us, not the end," Wahlers said Thursday.

Ryan's mother, Debra, told Castrignano she was in no place to judge her.

"I forgive you. Not because I believe you. I know you didn't think my son was a shopping cart. I forgive you because I want to be forgiven some day," she said. "My one hope is one day you truly feel our pain and realize what you took from us."

Castrignano's case and others highlight what many say is a loophole in Pennsylvania law that creates an incentive for impaired drivers to flee the scene of a fatal crash. Those who stay at the scene get a mandatory three years in jail. Those caught after they no longer could be tested for drugs or alcohol face a minimum one year because they could only be charged with fleeing, not driving under the influence.

It was never determined whether Castrignano was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash since she fled and didn't turn herself in for 12 hours. On Thursday, she denied being impaired. While arguing for leniency, Castrignano's defense attorney Peter John Moses noted Castrignano's case was much different than most hit-and-run cases. She turned herself in immediately after learning a person was hit, he said.

In many other cases, in which cops had to track down the driver and then force prosecutors to a trial, the driver eventually got the standard one-to-two year prison sentence, Moses noted.

Castrignano accepted responsibility from the beginning and pleaded guilty, he noted.

"There is nothing more unjust than to treat unequal things equal. Danielle's case cannot and should not be treated the same as those cases. It shouldn't be the same," Moses implored. "It's night and day, judge. You should not incentivize a driver to say, 'Let me take a shot and flee.'"

bkalinowski@citizensvoice.com

570-821-2055, @cvbobkal

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